Totem Poles and Tea

This book was an impulse buy, but it was fun. As a young woman, a recent graduate of nursing school in Vancouver, BC, Ms. Harold landed a job at a pretty good $90/month, it being 1935 and during the Depression! The only catch: She would be working on a remote island north of Vancouver, teaching and nursing in a First Nation's village. It was lonely, it was cold, transportaton was as likely to kill you as transport you and people her own age were hard to find. However, she remained for two years, made friends and found a new understanding of the independent, interesting people from all over the world who found their way to this remote patch in the Canadian Pacific. In writing her memoir, Ms. Harold did not sugar-coat her youthful reactions to circumstances through the hindsight of the over 50 years which passed between the time of her service and her telling of the tale. Her incredible poise when faced with the conditions she must work and live in is a real testimant to her determination and sense of adventure. (As often happens, or did before letter writing became a threatened art...saved letters to her mother during that time filled in many details she might have forgotten when she came to write the book.) I enjoyed this very much.